Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/437

. 11, 1862.] could not help feeling himself considerably distanced by his affable friend. When they reached the town, nothing would suit Captain Julius—for by that name the stranger had introduced himself—but that they must call in at the first hotel and have a bottle of champagne together. One bottle necessitated another; and by the time the second was half empty, Dick had grown very talkative indeed; and ranging with a loose and glowing tongue from one topic to another, found himself at last, almost to his own surprise, for he could not remember by what pleasant but devious path he had reached that point—dilating to his fashionable friend on the whims, eccentricities, and unaccountable vagaries of that mysterious Mr. Twoshoes. Captain Julius seemed mightily interested in the subject, and cross-questioned Dick upon it in a smiling affable way, and reverted to it again and again whenever Dick felt inclined to wander off into some other mazy streamlet of talk, till there was really nothing more to be learnt. Having finished their wine, they left the hotel, and strolled arm in arm through the streets, now lighted up and thronged with a busy crowd, till they reached the house of Dick’s brother-in-law; and then, after a hearty shake of the hand, and an arrangement that Dick should call on the captain at his hotel at eleven the next morning, they separated. Dick, who was still in a somewhat elevated mood, lingered at the door for a few minutes to finish his cigar. While thus standing he heard the Minster clock strike ten, and put his hand to his pocket to draw out his watch. But there was no watch left for him to find,—his pocket had been neatly and dexterously picked of his gold repeater, value twenty-five guineas. Quite sober by this time, and in a very queer humour, Master Dick walked down to the police-station to give notice of his loss. How Captain Julius would laugh at him in the morning for being such a greenhorn as to allow his pocket to be picked! If he could only induce the captain to go fishing with him, he would let him see that with a rod and line he knew a thing or two—that in matters piscatorial he was not altogether a novice! But when he reached the hotel on the following morning, the captain had flown, leaving a message that he had been telegraphed for, and obliged to depart by the six a.m. train; but that he hoped to revisit Markhallow in the course of a few weeks, and would not then fail to hunt up his friend Mr. Dereham. Dick returned home in a pensive mood, and spent a melancholy day in the manufacture of artificial flies.

A certain evening, about a week later, found Dick enjoying his cigar as usual on the step outside the door. Mr. Twoshoes was from home on some mysterious errand; my wife and her aunt were drinking tea at a neighbour’s in the next street; the servant was supposed to be gone to see her mother, but was in reality taking a pleasant ramble among the lanes with her “young man,” so that Dick had the whole establishment to himself. The shadows were creeping up the streets, and Dick was thinking about turning in, when his attention was drawn to the peculiar movements of a stranger on the other side of the way. Dick had noticed him a minute or two before, staring very earnestly at the house; had then seen him move slowly down the street; then slowly return in a sidling purposeless sort of way; and now for the second time he had planted himself directly opposite the house, and seemed to be taking a silent mental photograph of it. While Dick was still looking at him, and wondering what he could possibly be about, the stranger, in a cautious manner, beckoned him to approach; and on his repeating the movement, Dick quitted the steps and lounged across the street, by no means pleased at receiving so undignified a summons. The stranger was a burly, whiskerless man, with shifty quick-glancing eyes, and a mouth that seemed purposely formed for the imbibition of strong waters; his voice being a basso profundo, with a slight chronic wheeze in the lower notes.

“Your name is Richard Dereham, is it not?” he said, seizing Dick by a button as soon as the latter got within arm’s length.

“I have reason to believe that it is,” answered Dick, “but would not like to take long odds on the point.”

“None of your chaff, young gentleman, if you please. All I want is a few straightforward answers from you. Attend. Is there not living in the same house with you an individual who goes by the name of Mr. James Twoshoes?”

Dick rubbed his nose: he began to feel interested.

“I cannot answer any of your questions,” he said, “till I know what your object is in asking them; and something more about you.”

“If you must know, you must,” said the other. “My name is Jibble. I am, in fact, Inspector Jibble, of the Metropolitan Detective Force, and I am not asking these questions without a purpose in view.”

“Now I can answer you,” said Dick. “Mr. James Twoshoes does live in the house opposite.”

“Good. Have you noticed anything out of the common, anything eccentric or mysterious in the conduct or habits of this Mr. Twoshoes?”

“I have,” replied Dick, eagerly. And without further questioning he told all that he knew, suspected, and surmised respecting the unhappy Twoshoes.

“Quite coincides with the information I have received from head-quarters,” remarked the inspector, patronisingly, when Dick had finished. “One or two more questions, and I have done. Is Mr. Twoshoes in his rooms at the present time?”

“He is not—he will probably not be home for several hours; in fact, there’s no one in the house at present—and that reminds me that I have left the front door open.”

“No one in the house at present, eh?” said the inspector, musingly, as he balanced himself on his heels, and jingled the loose cash in his pocket. “Now, Mr. Dereham, I’ll be frank with you. I have in my pocket at the present moment a warrant for the apprehension of James Twoshoes. You may well start. He is one of the cleverest and most thorough-paced rogues going. I have been on his track for a long time, but he is such a slippery customer that I have hitherto had nothing tangible to go upon. I have never been